<\/p>\n
Cyberattackers are doubling down on their attacks on law firms and corporate legal departments, moving beyond their historic activity of hacking and leaking secrets to target the industry with financial attacks such as ransomware and mail compromise electronic business (BEC).<\/span><\/p>\n On November 24, managed services provider CTS, which provides IT services to law firms, acknowledged that the firm <\/span>had suffered a breach<\/a><\/span>, but did not give details about the origin of the attack. The incident has <\/span>the allegedly affected services<\/a><\/span> to dozens of law firms, especially in the real estate sector. The attack follows claims by the LockBit group that it compromised London-based law firm Allen & Overy, listing the company as victims on its data breach site and demanding a ransom. the signature <\/span>confirmed a breach<\/a><\/span>but failed to recognize the ransomware attack.<\/span><\/p>\n The attacks are just the latest to target law firms and legal departments. At least one attack group has specifically targeted law firms, seeding compromised sites with legal jargon to push the sites up in search rankings and then delivering a ransomware attack chain to visitors, says Keegan Keplinger , senior security researcher with managed detection and response company eSentire. .<\/span><\/p>\n “When [the targeting] it hasn’t been a legal organization, often it’s been the legal department or a legal user (a paralegal or a legal consultant) of an organization,” he says. “We saw a hospital get hit once, but it was the user legal in that hospital that was discharged [the malware].”<\/span><\/p>\n GootLoader, which leads to the Blackcat ransomware, has been heavily targeted at law firms. Source: eSentire<\/p>\n Hackers have long favored law firms as a way to steal secrets, making off with the personal information of Uber drivers. <\/span>from the law firm Genova Burns LLC<\/span> in January; data hijacking of contracts and personal emails of 200 high-profile celebrities: <\/span>including Lady Gaga, Madonna and Rod Stewart<\/span> \u2014 from New York law firm Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks in 2020; i <\/span>allegedly leaking the “Panama Papers”<\/span> \u2014 11.5 million documents on wealthy tax evaders \u2014 from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.<\/span><\/p>\n Traditionally, the lure for online attackers hasn’t been money, says Ilia Kolochenko, chief architect at application security firm ImmuniWeb.<\/span><\/p>\n “Law firms are quite far from being attractive targets for cybercriminals,” he says. “However, their clients\u2014that is, their clients’ secrets\u2014make law firms a magnet for all kinds of cybercriminals.”<\/span><\/p>\nClickbait becomes SEO poisoning<\/h2>\n